Thursday, July 14, 2011

Ok, so far we have covered a little bit about your choice of selling online, part time, full time, occasional selling. Discussed a little about you getting started by choosing a name, your picture or avatar, setting up accounts, emails, security, taxes, and venues.

Now, I would like to cover just a little more in depth about choosing if you want to sell with a MarketPlace, or an Auction Site. You might also decide you would like to use both. The old saying "don't keep all your eggs in one basket" always comes to mind when choosing sites, and how many to sell with.

Most of us when first starting choose one site. We do this so that we can get the feel of things, test things out, and learn with it. When choosing what venue will be best for you, there are some things you should consider. Also, know that before choosing a place I would recommend researching some of them a little bit so that you may learn about them, and understand a little more about them prior to choosing one.

Some of the things you should consider are:

• What is the focus of the site you are researching

• What are the listing costs for the site

• Consider what their category selection is, and do they have categories for

what you will be offering

• How are their listing formats. Will it be fairly easy to list there, is it self

explanatory, is there support available to help

• What payment services are allowed with the site. Is there more than one

choice.

• How is the ease of use of the site. Is it easy to navigate. If you enjoy it, will

the customer also enjoy it as well?

• How is the security with the site

• What are their listing policies

• How is the traffic to the site

• Do they feed to the search engines

• Check for visibility with the MarketPlace. This is called Site Search

Optimization. Will determine how your listings will rank among other listings on the site.

If you choose to sell by having auctions, there are different sites that you can consider.

• Ebay is the biggest one that we all know. The fee structure is a little bit complicated, and would need to be studied. The fees are divided into 3 categories which are Listing Fee, Final Value Fee, and Subscription Fee. If list items that do not sell you may still owe fees for those listings. The Final Value Fee is only for items that sell.

• eBid is the leading alternative to Ebay. Their focus is on keeping a variety. Registration is free. If listing for auction you will need to upgrade account to Seller, or Seller+ status. See the subscription prices in the My Subscriptions section of My eBid.

• Atomic Mall was originally set up for the fixed price format, and low fees. They have since added the auction format of a sealed bid process.

• Addoway is a newer site that is growing. You can list for free, and they soon will be implementing a final value fee.

• Etsy is another site for handmade, vintage, craft supplies, media, design, and for fine art. They have a .20 cent listing fee in which that listing is good for up to four months. They also have the Final Value Fee upon the items selling.

• Bonanza which use to be Bonanzle, is a free listing site. They do have a final value fee with the sale of an item.

• Yardsellr is a new social marketplace that is used through facebook.

There are many more places to choose for the marketplaces as well. Check with 101 Auction Sites to see about some of these mentioned, and others too.

You have seen me mentioning fees. Every site is different in how they charge, what they charge, and if they charge. The break down of the fees to watch for will be listing fees that will be charged to your site account when you list an item. The final value fee is charged when a sale is made. The fee usually consists of a percent of the sale that will vary from site to site also. Extra fees might include for having a gallery picture, using bold print within the title, extra pictures from the amount the site already offers, and so on. As mentioned some sites will also have a monthly subscription charge. The fees will vary from site to site that have them. Along with the monthly subscription they might offer a free store front, and extra tools and services can have a monthly subscription too.

When searching for a market place check how their availability is with the search engines. Google is the biggest search engine, but there is also Bing that is used by some too. Most sites will offer to automatically submit your listings to Google, both, and maybe a few others too. Some sites will also offer the tools for you to use to submit your listings to facebook, twitter, and other social medias too.

I hope that some of this was able to help you a little further with your decisions when selling online. It's a big place out there, and there is much to see, and learn. None of us can fully know all the answers, but we can offer what we know and have learned along the way. Hopefully it can with some of your decisions as you move forward. Maybe you have already been selling online, but are still learning as I do too.

Thanks for visiting with LilacsNDreams, and hope these ideas will help you again with your decisions of selling online. I wish you all well, and the best of luck to you. Most of all, have fun with it too. Take care Everyone!:)

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